About 11 1/2 years ago I took to the streets with thousands of others to shout “Not In My Name” and otherwise protest against the illegal invasion of Iraq, the illegal toppling of its government, etc. I spent a lot of time back then reading about the War which ensued,…
Over the weekend California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a list of bills focusing on climate change issues, some of which would expand support for electric cars. I’ve seen some in the EV community applaud these moves, but I see a mixed bag of some things which might be useful and…
From the viewpoint Silicon Valley’s award-winning National Drive Electric Week celebration yesterday, electric cars are becoming mainstream. Our region is enjoying the highest rate of electric car sales in the country, and for our 2014 NDEW event we had the intention to have the largest assemblage of electric vehicles anywhere.…
We are facing many problems in the world, like climate change, peak oil, financial collapse, resource wars over access to fossil fuels, and environmental catastrophes like the collapse of sea life in the ocean. Any of these are seriously difficult problems, and they’re hitting us all at the same time.…
President Obama was elected in 2008 on a platform promising, among other things, a green jobs revolution. That the way out of the economic mess of 2008-9, that threatened a global economic meltdown and catastrophic depression, was to support green technologies, green energy systems, and lead a wave of innovation…
The change two weeks ago by Blink Networks to switch from per-hour pricing to per-kilowatt-hour pricing has caused an eruption of anger among Blink members. The change was supposed to solve another big problem – Blink’s habit of rounding up session fees to the next hour even when the elapsed…
Access to charging stations is a fundamental need for electric vehicle drivers. But does that mean an electric car driver can park in a handicapped spot just to access a charging station? If the charging station is blocked, does that transfer rights to the electric car driver to violate the…
Who wants to ride 1000 miles in 24 hours on an electric motorcycle? Okay, you, your name’s Terry, right? You look crazy enough to try this, go ahead. (ahem) Terry Hershner, a.k.a. Electric Terry, is seeking to become known as IronButtTerry. He set out at 1 PM on Monday from…
The whole car industry must be able to compete against a 200+ mile range $35,000 MSRP electric car from Tesla Motors, by 2017. That fact is probably what’s behind today’s news/rumors that Nissan may be shutting down its battery factories and switching to LG Chem as their battery supplier. In…
Surely every electric car driver has had this idea – why not carry a portable gasoline powered generator so you can charge your car in a pinch? I’ve spent quite a bit of time weighing this idea back and forth, because it’s so simple. The BMW i3 even gets ever…
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) are slowly making their way to market, after many many years of “they’re 5-10 years away”. For informational purposes, today the Dept of Energy and the SAE teamed up on a Webinar going over the status of fuel cell vehicle fueling standards (SAE J2601 –…
Hillary Clinton is almost certainly going to run for President, and she’ll almost certainly be a polarizing figure. She may even win, but we have to be clear on a couple things: Hillary Clinton will be pushing fracking, not only in the U.S. but around the world. How do we…
Last week Tesla Motors excited us by taking a big step toward the promised Gigafactory, that in turn is the necessary big thing to build to enable the Tesla Model 3 electric car. While many people in Nevada are excited to know the Gigafactory is coming to Reno, and it’s…
Is your electric car powered by coal? Routinely, electric cars are dismissed as being coal powered, and therefore the environmental fruitcake treehuggers flocking to electric cars are delusional. That critique is really saying electric cars externalize all the negative environmental harm over to a power plant. Is that true? If…
Back in 2010, Tesla Motors and Toyota surprised us all with a deal to jointly develop the 2nd Generation Toyota RAV4-EV. Toyota also sold Tesla a factory it wasn’t using, with which Tesla now plans to build a half million EV’s a year in 2020. The resulting vehicle is being…
